A Mommy Tag

Bug was tagged by Pickle.

1.What is something Mommy always says? Do stuff.
2. What makes Mommy happy? Sleeping in
3. What makes Mommy sad? Megan’s cranking.
4. How does your Mom make you laugh? By tickling me.
5. What was your Mom like as a child? I don't know
6. How old is your Mom? Do I have to say the really, real age? I think it’s 34
7. How tall is your Mom? 5 feet 9 inches (I guess I have grown a foot or two)
8. What is your Mom's favorite thing to do? Sleeping in. (Never enough sleep at this house.)
9. What does Mom do when you're not around? Eats sugar and watches TV.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Taking pictures.
11. What is your Mom really good at? Taking care of Megan.
12. What is your Mom not good at? I don’t know. She' good at lots of things.
13. What does Mom do for her job? Takes pictures. Does boat stuff.
14. What is Mom's favorite food? Chocolate. (What a smart kid.)
15. What makes you proud of your Mom? She makes the best French Toast for me.
16. If your Mom were a cartoon character who would she be? Wonder Mom. (We make up our own characters around here.)
17. What do you and your Mom do together? Make up stories.
18. How are you and your Mom the same? We both have blue eyes.
19. How are you and your Mom different? She’s taller.
20. How do you know your Mom loves you? Because she takes good care of me.
Tag: Allihya, Keltin, Cheese, Hannah, Conrad

2nd Grade, here we come

Adam is starting 2nd grade this year. He's excited to go back to school. We have been way too busy this summer and are looking forward to the routine of school again. I really dislike the school pictures taken at the beginning of the year, and since I know how to use a camera, I decided to take some of my own. He's a cute kid, so I will probably take a few more! :) If you would like a copy of his "school" pictures, post a comment, and I will send one right out to you.

Wordless Wednesday

EEK!!! There's a mouse in my house!!!

I have a routine at night. Every night, I do the same thing the same way. I go in the hall, turn on the light and then go and check on my kids one at a time, then give them a kiss and stroke their heads. Then I check to make sure the front door is locked, the curtains are all closed and windows locked and then I go to the back door and call for the cat. Some nights she runs right in, some nights she takes her own sweet cat time getting in. I like to have her in at night because of the big raccoons that seem to find their way to my yard at night.

So tonight, when I got to the calling the cat in part of my routine, I didn't think she would come right away. She's still ticked at me for putting her flea and tick treatment on her earlier today. It was raining though, so that usually makes her come in a little faster. She meowed at me so I knew she was coming and brought in a not quite dead mouse to the middle of the dining room floor and dropped it, saving it for later I guess. I freaked out. I woke up Adam and yelled for Grandpa (who is still here, thank heavens). In the time I freaked out and woke up the house I could have grabbed the broom and shoved the thing outside again. I wasn't thinking clearly though. By the time Grandpa had gotten back out here, the mouse had revived and taken off into a hole in the cabinetry. We looked and looked and couldn't find another way in or out of there. The hole leads to behind the dishwasher. My only hope of not living with dead rodent smell is for the sucker to get brave again and come out of his hole at the same time the cat is hungry and in the house.

Oh the excitement of if all. Where is my husband again????

That could have gone better...

We started out with high hopes of a fun camping trip with Grandpa. We were headed to Pacific Beach to play in the sand and fly kites and eat camping food until we were sick of it. Good plan. Not so good in reality.

When we got to Pacific Beach, it was windy. Not just breezy, but windy. We took the kids down to the beach to play and Meg decided this was not where she wanted to be. It took her a couple of trips down there before she would even walk around on the sand.

Adam had fun though, chasing the seagulls and writing in the sand.

We decided to be brave and try and set the tent up, just as it started raining a little. As it turns out, you can't set up a 5 man tent in 40 mph winds and not expect some damage. The first cracking sound made me jump, the second made me look. Both main tent polls had cracked. By this time the rain was serious and the wind had picked up. I go to the office and low and behold, there was one room left for the night in the motel portion of the "resort". Sold. We spent our first night camping in a hotel room watching Baby Signing Times trying to keep the baby from screaming. We also ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. Not exactly the plan.

The second day we figure we can pull it together. Grandpa's one of the smartest guys I know and he can fix anything, so he pulled out the duct tape and got the tent poles back together again. We headed north and ended up in a remote campground called North Forks on Quinalt Lake.

We got out of the truck and looked around a while and that's when the feast began. Not the feast I had planned, but the feast for the mosquitoes. I thought they were going to carry the baby away. Could I find the bug spray anywhere? Nope, must have forgotten that. The good thing about the fact that it it started raining again just as we were trying to set the tent up, is that the mosquitoes went away. We managed to get it set up, get the truck unloaded and tried to light a fire. Grandpa again relied on his ingenuity and used diesel fuel to get lots of white smoke, but no fire. (Don't try that at home, kids.) I tried the Coleman stove and couldn't even keep that going long enough to heat up lunch. We had lukewarm lunch and everyone started to get a little cranky.

After spending just 4 hours and everyone getting soaked to the bone, we decided to pack up and head for home. Meg was so sad and so wet, I decided to stow her away in the truck while we broke camp. She found the open bag of cereal and happily munched away while we continued to get soaked and re-pack the truck.
On the ride home both kids were exhausted, so were the grown ups for that matter. I looked in the backseat and saw both kids in dreamland. I hope they were dreaming of a fun camp out in the sun with no mosquitoes and no rain.

A political conversation with a 7 year old

My darling, bright and talented son is almost 8. Sometimes I think he can't hear me at all, but then he comes up with questions that stun me and show me he really is listening to everything. (He must be choosing to ignore the sound of his mother's voice when she asks him to pick something up or get in the car. Go figure.)

So this was the conversation in the car yesterday after listening to a news brief on NPR.
Bug: Why did Russia invade Georgia?
Me: Georgia used to be a part of Russia and they were upset that Georgia wanted Russia out of the decision making for them. And they said Georgia had attacked some Russian military peace keeping forces. You can't really be sure of that though, sometimes the truth doesn't come out for a long time.
Bug: Are the US and Georgia allies?
Me: I am not sure, but I don't think we can officially be an ally to Georgia until they join NATO, which they were trying to do and Russia also didn't like.

Side conversation about NATO... Help!

Bug: Why would the US send troops to Georgia?
Me: the US has doesn't like it when a smaller country is attacked. I guess our leaders think it's their job to protect people, depending on their interests, and what they can do out of the deal.
Bug: So who were the bad guys in Iraq? Why are we over there?
Me: (taking a deep breath) Remember when the US was attacked by those terrorists and all of those people were killed? The US discovered that the bad guys were trained in Iraq and Afghanistan and that they were hurting other people over there, so they decided to try and stop them.
Bug: So we aren't fighting with Iraq, just the bad guys who live there and hurt people?
Me: right, kind of. There's more to it I think.
Bug: So that's why they are calling it The War on Terror.
Me: yep.
Bug: Mom, you missed your turn.
Me: Yes I did. I guess I got distracted. Thanks, my GPS kid.

I long for the days when I can just answer simply "This is a good conversation to have with Dad."

Breaking Dawn, and keeping it all together

I bet those of you who are Stephanie Meyer fans have read it or plan to very soon. I borrowed it from a friend at church and read it the same day, to the neglect of my family and my sleep. I liked it a lot, there was a lot less whining this time around and felt a little more grown up. Great read, even though it does have an actual fairy tale ending.

In my defense about not tending my family... When my DH is at sea, like now, I don't get any down time. There is no support being a single mom. Laundry, feeding, care and clean up of kids and house are all you. As are playing games, doing math pages, reading tons of books and mowing the lawn. Then, of course, there's the other stuff. Like church obligations, friends, weddings, baby showers, and extended family.

So after being out every single weeknight last week and the kids not getting to bed until after 9:30 every night, I had a little nervous breakdown on Friday night. Feeling like a horrible mother and a defective housekeeper who can't hold the simplest of things together. I had a good conversation with the Lord and came to a shocking discovery. I don't have to do it all, and it doesn't have to be done all at once. I am not my mother-in-law, who really can do it all and bake a cake at the same time, I am who I am, doing the best I can. It's all I can do and I don't have to feel guilty about the rest. I backed out of and gave up some activities this week. I won't be volunteering for new stuff any time soon. I am going to concentrate on my family, my house and my sanity. I sure hope this plan works.

The Perfect cherry

The Perfect Cherry

First you have to find cherries. If you are in Aunt Sheri's orchard, you shouldn't have to look very far. It's always good to take some extra time running around on the 4 wheeler just to make sure you have a good tree though. It's kind of fun too.

Then you have to pick the cherries. If you aren't 16, and aren't family, you have to find someone to climb the ladder for you.



Next, you have to taste the cherries. Just to make absolutely sure they are the best around.



After that, you pit the cherries. They are easier to feed to your sister that way and you don't have to go around and pick up all of those pesky pits later.



The last step is to enjoy the fruits of your labors. Have someone count the extra cherry freckles you have and forget trying to the get the cherry juice off of your hands, it's going to be there a while. That's okay though, you have just enjoyed summer's sweetest treat ever. That's how to have the perfect cherry.